Quickies: Jon Krakauer Faces Heckler, Poly Families and the Law, and the Legacy of Segregation

What Is A ‘Good Muslim’ Anyway? A Podcast Disrupts The Narrative – ” ‘To complicate matter even further,’ Noorbakhsh adds, ‘many times because I identify myself as a “pork-eating, alcohol-drinking, premarital-sex-having Muslim,” then I’ll have audience members say, “Oh, you’re the good kind of Muslim,” because to them … I am less Muslim.’ “

The long drive to end a pregnancy – “On the 407 miles of open road between home and a Montana abortion clinic, a woman has a lot of time to think about how she got from there to here.”

How Some Baltimore Neighborhoods Reflect Segregation’s Legacy – “In 1947, when Levittown was first opened, homes were sold to white, working-class families for about $8,000 apiece. That is about $125,000 today. African-Americans were prohibited from buying into those developments, even though they had the economic means to do so.”

Reform of the Nerds, Starring Arthur Chu – “On the Internet, any open conversation about Gamergate provokes a savage barrage. But as the panel progressed, it became clear that the room wasn’t the Internet, everyone inside it was going to behave, and no one was going to burst through the door yelling death threats or claiming that gaming had been overrun by a feminist cabal.”

Mary

Mary Brock is a scientist who works on drugs you've hopefully never heard of. She enjoys cooking to Blue Grass music, messing with her cats, and hosting the Boston Skeptics' Book Club. She was born in the South but loves living in New England (despite the lack of chocolate chip pizza). Mary does not use Twitter and don't even try to follow her, because she is always looking over her shoulder.

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The Skepchick Network is a collection of smart and often sarcastic blogs focused on science and critical thinking. The original site is Skepchick.org, founded by Rebecca Watson in 2005 to discuss women’s issues from a skeptical standpoint.